


Through Space and Time

by Black_Knight



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:47:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21831001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Knight/pseuds/Black_Knight
Summary: Future Nico and Future Karolina were erased…but what does that mean, exactly?
Relationships: Karolina Dean/Nico Minoru
Comments: 22
Kudos: 214





	Through Space and Time

Karolina has no idea what is going on.

Just a second ago, Karolina had been leaning into Nico, each of them with an arm around the other like they had so often done when they were together before, taking warmth and comfort from each other, as they felt themselves being erased. The next, she’s suspended in an expanse so vast and unending that she thinks it must be infinity.

It’s as if she’s weightless. She can move her head around. She can move her arms and legs around. But she quickly realizes the pointlessness of it. She will never be any nearer or any farther from anywhere. There isn’t an anywhere.

Panic fills her. “Nico! _Nico!_ ”

——————————————————————————————————————————

“What the hell?” Nico mutters.

She’s supposed to be erased. She’d felt herself being erased. It’s strange, she thinks, how you might have no idea what something feels like, but once you feel it, you know exactly what it is. She _had_ been erased.

So where is she? What is she? And where…

“ _Karolina!_ ”

——————————————————————————————————————————

Karolina’s breath comes in panicky gasps. Nico’s not there. It’s like the day she woke up, the morning after Gert’s funeral, to find herself alone in the bed she shared with Nico. And only a note on the pillow:

_I have to go away. I’m sorry._

_I’ll always love you._

She struggles to get herself under control. She knows this panic is an instinctive reaction, that she was triggered. (Thanks, psych major! She’d wanted to be an artist, before. But after everything she’d been through…) She tries to slow her breathing down. This isn’t like before. This isn’t like before.

_“Promise me you’ll find me. Wherever we are.”_

_“I will.”_

Karolina feels her heart gradually stop hammering in her chest. Nico can’t always be trusted, she knows that well enough after waking up to find herself abandoned. But Nico would never not find her.

——————————————————————————————————————————

Nico cannot figure out how to navigate this space. She thinks of how Karolina must be feeling, and her heart clenches. What if Karolina doesn’t trust her to keep her promise? Her master’s instructions, the ones he’d repeated a dozen times a day, float into her mind: “You must focus. There is no room for distraction. For doubt.”

It had usually been thoughts of the girl she’d left behind that were distracting her, causing her to doubt her chosen path. That was why her master had had to say that mantra so often. But now, ironically, Karolina is no longer the distraction, but the mission. Nico focuses.

——————————————————————————————————————————

Karolina figures it out, and she knows she has figured it out before Nico. She has an advantage Nico doesn’t have.

She knows what it is to be light.

E=mc squared. She’d learned that in school. The relationship between matter and energy. Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. Energy and matter are just two forms of the same thing.

She lets her body go insubstantial, she lets herself become energy.

And the formless, vacant space around her blazes.

Karolina smiles in amazement as she sees what this infinity really is. She mentally thanks Alex, because she might not have known it without his constant geekery. Nico might not; despite being closer to Alex, she’d always had less patience for his babbling. Nico wasn’t a patient person, except with Karolina. Only with Karolina.

Nico might be a while. That’s okay. One of them needs to stay in place, and they’d agreed Nico would find her. Taking off in search of Nico, in this vast space, is likelier to be counterproductive than anything. Karolina will wait. There’s plenty to occupy her time.

——————————————————————————————————————————

Nico’s embarrassed at how long it took her to figure things out. Her girlfriend, well, ex-girlfriend, no, girlfriend, she’d never broken up with her, is basically a manifestation of light. But then, empathy was never really one of Nico’s strengths. She has a distinct point of view, and she sticks to it. She likes it that way.

But she’s energy now. She has no idea what she’s looking at, but the important thing is that she can finally move around. All these lights and pulses and things she doesn’t even have words for are just distractions, because none of them are Karolina.

——————————————————————————————————————————

It’s a vast space, infinity. It takes time. Alex comes across Karolina first, of course - he’s so smart that he figured things out before anyone else. He helps her fashion a kind of room, a place where they take on more substantial forms and interact like they did in their old lives, on Earth. And then the other Alex arrives. Karolina doesn’t like that much. The two Alexes eventually go away together, and although she knows that’s probably not a good thing, she’s still relieved. 

Molly zooms in next, exuberant, high on waves of energy, eager to keep riding them. She understands when Karolina reminds her that Nico is looking for her, and takes off again. Karolina smiles after her affectionately, knowing they’ll see each other again.

——————————————————————————————————————————

It stands out like nothing else in the expanse. A big, floating box of sorts. It’s matter. The outside is colored in the shades of Karolina’s lights, and Nico knows her search is over. She lets herself become a body again, outside the doorway. But before she can knock, the door swings open and a glowing Karolina is there, grinning at her. Nico throws herself at her, and they really hug, for the first time in over three years. Karolina feels warmer than before, which Nico supposes only makes sense given that she’s probably either in her glowing form or energy form all the time now.

“I kept my promise.” It’s important to Nico to emphasize this point.

“I knew you would.”

Being back in each other’s company isn’t simple, though. Even though their lives have been erased, they still remember them. Karolina has had a lot of time to process, but Nico had spent it all searching for Karolina.

First, Karolina explains to Nico what she and the first Alex had figured out, singly and together. “We were erased, but not out of existence. We’re outside of time now.” She waves an arm around. “What you can see when you’re energy - it’s the multiverse. One of the things Alex was always going on about. Do you remember?”

Nico just rolls her eyes, and Karolina continues, “We’re not in the multiverse either, we’re outside of that too.”

Nico can feel the beginnings of a headache coming on. “So we were erased from our universe?”

“Yes, and ended up here. Outside of it. Outside of all the universes.”

“What are the other universes?”

“Different timelines, really.”

“Can we go in?”

“Not exactly. But we can see other versions of ourselves in them, at any point in their lives.”

“I definitely have a headache now.”

——————————————————————————————————————————

Karolina had looked at a lot of the timelines before Nico arrived. It’s a large part of why she's not jittery at all when she puts her hands on Nico’s neck and draws her in for their first kiss in years.

At first Nico melts into the embrace, chasing Karolina’s lips with hers. She’s missed Karolina so much; Karolina had never been out of her thoughts in all her time away.

But Nico is Nico. And as much as she wants to just stay in Karolina’s arms and never let her go, there are things Nico can’t get out of her head.

Like Julie.

It’s unfair and Nico knows it. But she’s always had a problem with jealousy.

“I did wait for you, Nico. It took me a year to stop suddenly breaking into tears over you and over Gert. It took me another year before I even looked at anyone else.”

“But then you did.”

“I don’t know what you expected to happen, but did you _want_ me to be lonely forever?”

“No, of course not.” Just until Nico came back, that’s all. She’d always intended to come back.

(The darkest part of her: Yes. But she still wouldn’t choose it. The better part of herself wins when it’s Karolina involved.)

“So what’s the problem? I chose you, Nico. I chose you when I told you to find me.”

“Yeah, in this reality. Where our old lives have been erased and so you can’t be with Julie.”

Karolina chuckles a bit then, in fond exasperation. It offends Nico.

“So that’s funny to you?”

She starts to move away, but Karolina catches her, putting an arm on her shoulder.

“A little. Because you still don’t get it, do you, Nico? I told you before, no matter where we go, what the distance is between us, I will always come back to you.”

“You say that, but-”

“I know that. Let me show you.”

Karolina puts her whole arm around Nico’s shoulders then, as she lets her eyes go insubstantial. Energy flickers in them. Nico copies her, and looks where Karolina is looking.

It’s a universe. It’s a timeline.

Karolina whispers in her ear, “Gert still died in one of the other universes. We only changed our own.”

Nico is transfixed as the images and words start flowing into her.

_“Wait, so, um…Julie’s her actual girlfriend? Not just like roommates?”_

Karolina steps away from her. Nico glances up, but Karolina gestures for her to look back. “I already saw it. But you watch.”

A bit confused, Nico turns back.

The group doesn’t go back in time to save Gert. But Nico sticks around. Karolina stays with Julie, but Nico can see from her outside perspective what a distraction her other self is for Karolina. Julie can see it too. And when she confronts Karolina about it, Nico knows why Karolina didn’t want to watch this again.

_“I am not your first thought or priority anymore. Nico is.”_

_“She just needs help right now - she’s looking for a place to live, a job, she’s starting up her life in LA again.”_

_“That’s not all it is. I should have seen this when she first came back, and you told me you were committed to me.”_

_“I am-”_

_“And that’s the only reason you’re staying.”_

_Karolina’s mouth opens and closes soundlessly._

_Julie goes on. “You know, I didn’t realize it before. You’re such a warm person, so caring, that I never realized I was only getting part of what you’re capable of. The rest of your group did. No wonder they always kind of treated me like someone passing through. They knew what I didn’t, that you’ve never once looked at me the way you looked at Nico. And still look at Nico.”_

_Karolina looks away._

_“And you’re too nice and too loyal to break a commitment. But I don’t want you to stay with me just because of that. We’re not married.”_

_“I do love you-”_

_“But not as much as you love her.”_

Nico mostly fast-forwards through the rest of the breakup, which is just more of the same. Karolina apologizes a lot. Julie cries. Karolina packs and leaves. She takes the night to process. The next day, she calls Nico. Karolina being Karolina, she delays the inevitable for Julie’s sake, so as not to rub salt in the wound, but it’s still not that long before she and Nico are officially back together.

Nico waves with her hand and the universe sort of folds up and moves away. Karolina comes over and wraps her arms around Nico. “You see?”

“Have you looked at other timelines?”

“Yeah. It helped pass the time while I waited for you.”

“And?”

“What do you think?”

——————————————————————————————————————————

Nico tends to watch the other Nicos and Karolinas in the timelines where things are harder for them.

There’s the timeline in which Nico stops Karolina from kissing her, and spends a couple of years being confused and jealous of Karolina with other people before finally getting her head clear and declaring her feelings underneath a starry sky.

There’s the timeline in which Xavin, coached by Alex, lays a guilt trip on Karolina about the plight of the Xartan, a much more effective tactic than Xavin’s terrible attempts at courtship. Nico agrees to go with Karolina, but Xavin and Alex contrive it so that the wormhole closes before Nico enters. Karolina still refuses to marry Xavin, but it takes her years to establish a democracy on Gibborim that will protect the Xartans’ rights before she is allowed to return to Earth. When she does, she finds Nico living with Alex. It doesn’t matter; Nico leaves Alex immediately. Soft-hearted Karolina protests, but Nico responds, “Why do you think I never married him?”

There’s the timeline in which Nico gets kidnapped to Murderworld with Chase. They both make it out, deeply scarred by their experiences. Karolina holds her every night and lets her not talk about it.

There’s the timeline in which Karolina, not Janet, is sucked into the Algorithm. Chase eventually builds a robot and implants the Algorithm into its brain. Then Nico casts a “real girl” spell.

There’s the timeline in which Nico really does go full dark no stars, and although Karolina cuts her off romantically, she never stops trying to draw Nico back to the light. Eventually Nico does make it back.

There’s the timeline in which Leslie and Susan convince Karolina to become the active head of the Church of Gibborim as the way she can do the most good, and gradually the worship of so many goes to her head. But Nico refuses to give up on her, and eventually Karolina comes back down to earth, humbled and embarrassed.

——————————————————————————————————————————

Karolina has had enough of drama. She likes to watch the various weddings. There are all kinds. Sometimes it’s Gibborim and sometimes Wiccan and sometimes a justice of the peace, and an unofficial one while trapped underground in a cave thinking they’re about to die. They do tend to have their weddings outdoors, and the other Runaways are always included, at least those who aren’t currently evil at the time. And they always look so happy to have made it to the altar after all they’ve been through, and confident in their vows to each other.

Nico watches enough of the weddings, snuggled up against Karolina, to notice that those where Karolina does most of the planning are the ones where she and Nico are in sharp contrast: Karolina in white or colors, Nico in black, different wedding rings and bouquets. The ones where Nico does most of the planning have them looking similar, in pretty white dresses. It’s an interesting difference in approach, Nico thinks, that betrays their separate concerns. Karolina wants Nico to know that she embraces their differences. Nico wants Karolina to know that she’s okay with embracing the light sometimes.

On her own, Nico goes back to the original timeline, the part that wasn't erased, to watch the nightmare end of Karolina's pod fantasy that she'd described. Her heart breaks as she watches Karolina with the "dying" digital fake. How could she have made Karolina go through losing her again? She skips forward to confirm that she did fix it. Even though she knows now that Karolina would still take her back years later, she's especially attached to this timeline - it's the one she's from, after all, and it's the one she's broken the rules to change - and she's relieved to see that her speech did work. The other Nico listens; she stays and fights; she works her issues out together with Karolina instead of shutting her out to go it alone. Their eventual wedding in that timeline is a combination of their two fantasies. They marry at sunset with the rest of the group and Leslie present. They do the binding of the hands, but also exchange black and light wedding rings. Karolina wears a rainbow dress while Nico wears white, a relief to Karolina who still has the image burned into her memory of "Nico" in her black wedding dress dying in her arms. This wedding is Nico's sentimental favorite.

——————————————————————————————————————————

There are sometimes children. Around half the time, Nico uses the Staff of One to create a baby that’s biologically both hers and Karolina’s. The resulting magical human-alien hybrid definitely comes with some interesting complications. In other universes, Nico and Karolina choose to adopt instead. The adopted child is sometimes Alex’s, after he’d gotten himself killed with some evil scheme.

——————————————————————————————————————————

Many, many timelines later, Nico still hasn’t seen one where the two of them don’t always find each other again. Where they don’t spend the bulk of their lives together, and aren’t together at the end. Sometimes their lifetimes are pretty short, given the dangerous lives they lead, but they die together. Mostly they have long lives, since they’re both powerful beings.

Karolina was right to have faith, and Nico can finally feel herself truly having that perfect faith too. She doesn’t need to look in every single universe. It was the hardest thing of all for her to learn.

——————————————————————————————————————————

It’s then that Karolina tells her about the two Alexes.

“You think that they’re going to try to break into universes and take over the Alexes there?”

“Well, the evil future one, anyway. The budding evil one” (they’ve noticed in a lot of the timelines, this describes 2022 Alex) “-is probably more interested in being a Time Lord of the Multiverse or something like that. Which is a little too godlike for anyone.”

Nico smiles. It had been good to watch all those other Nicos and Karolinas, but it was time to do something of their own. “So this is our mission in our reality? Guardians of the Multiverse?”

“And we should get Molly to help.”

“If we can convince her to stop surfing the waves long enough to listen.”

“We can do anything.”

“I know. You have faith in us,” Nico says with a self-deprecating eyeroll.

Karolina’s not fooled though. “So do you.” 

She holds out her hand and Nico takes it. Their bodies change into energy, fusioning together. And they soar through the expanse that contains the multiverse, passing by universe after universe that contains its own Nico and Karolina, always finding their way to each other.

**Author's Note:**

> I know there are conflicting opinions about the series finale, and I have them too. But the more I think about it, the more I find the Future Karolina/Future Nico story poignant and something that underlines that in any universe, timeline or reality, the two of them are endgame.


End file.
